The decision of the court of appeal in Belfast in the case of Ashers bakery cannot be welcomed by anyone who cares about free speech. Briefly, a gay couple asked a Christian bakery to make them a cake showing Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street with a message praising equal marriage. The bakery refused, saying the message was contrary to the clear teaching of the Bible. The couple sued, claiming they had been discriminated against on the grounds of their sexual orientation. The bakers, in turn, felt discriminated against for their religious beliefs. If the case is understood as one that sets religious rights against sexual orientation then the decision against the bakers is understandable. There cannot be a blanket exemption against discrimination law because some people feel their conscience compels them to act unjustly. Although it is invidious to have to choose between religious and sexual identity, the law should, when in doubt, protect sexual minorities over religious ones.

But that is not the only way in which this question can be examined. We may well think that Ashers bakery are bigots or fundamentalists but the other principle at issue is one of free speech. The law against discrimination says that they may not refuse service to anyone because of their sexual orientation. That’s entirely right. It is further arguable that they should not be able to discriminate against anyone because of their political views. But what is at stake here – as Peter Tatchell has pointed out – is also a principle of free speech. They were being asked to make a statement in favour of gay marriage with which they profoundly disagreed. And here they ought to have had the right to disagree.

It may seem that writing in icing on a cake is a trivial form of expression compared to, say, writing in a national newspaper. But it is still the clear expression of an opinion, and that is something that should not be compelled any more than it should be suppressed. The medium does not here affect the message. Suppose the bakery had been approached to produce a cake iced with the old Paisleyite slogan “Save Ulster from Sodomy”. Most decent people would applaud a refusal to reproduce such bigotry. Yet from the perspective of free speech, the principle is exactly the same. If free speech is not the right to be wrong it means nothing at all. Everyone has the right to their opinion but there is no right to compel other people to amplify or even reproduce it.

As a matter of law, the situation in Northern Ireland is more complicated. For historical reasons there are very tight restrictions on the exercise of speech there if it might be used to whip up hatred. It’s possible that in the fevered atmosphere around equal rights in which the cake was commissioned, the bakers’ rejection of the commission did strike the couple involved as an attack on their own integrity. There ought to be a right not to be bullied, even if there isn’t, and there shouldn’t be any right not to be offended. Free speech absolutism too often extends to a defence of bullying even when it is not defending direct incitement to hatred or violence, as many women who have ventured an opinion online have discovered. What makes this case importantly different is that it involved an attempt to compel someone to express – even in sugar paste – an opinion they rejected with all their hearts. That’s wrong even when the opinion is right.